Pram people

The entire world seems to be being overrun by pram people. Babies are the new must have accessory and let me tell you I’m over it! It’s not that I have anything against the babies themselves, or the parents either for that matter. It’s more the all pervading attitude society takes with regards to the rights and privileges that go along with pram ownership.
Let me give you some examples. The other day I went swimming at a local public pool. It was during the late morning so, not unexpectedly, any number of children from the local Primary school were having swimming lessons. Both the change rooms and the pools were overrun by wild, screaming, giggling children. Fair enough, kids should learn how to swim. No problem there. I decided to go from the pool to one of my favorite cafes to have a quiet lunch and read the paper. Delighted to find the place not busy I settled myself at one of the larger tables so that I could spread the paper out and read it cover to cover. Just after my food and coffee had been delivered to me some pram people arrived. Now I must point out at this point that there were any number of other tables available in the café, however, I was asked to move tables so tat this couple and their one child could have the bigger space. They of course had a pram. Not that the child was at any time in the pram. They seemed to bring it along just in case!
Example number two also finds it’s setting in a café, this time one in Brunswick St where I was making use of their free wireless broadband. I had ordered my lunch special pasta and glass of wine and was engrossed in my emails when an ear piercing screech eminated from a nearby toddler. The person dispatched to deal with the screaming child could have been no more than 12 or 13. ‘Could this be the father?’ I wondered in dismay. It took some minutes of continual screaming before anyone else decided to take responsibility for the situation. Finally the mother arrived on the scene and made some excuse about the toddler being tortured by his older brother. If this had been the end of the incident I perhaps would not have been bothered. The trouble really began when the two mothers in that party, both with prams, paid their bill and left the café just before me and decided to head in the same direction as me. Now as many of you will know or imagine, footpaths along Brunswick St are not that wide in fact they are almost exactly the width of two prams side by side! I know this because it took me some minutes to navigate my way around them and even when I excused myself indicating that I needed to pass, the eyeball rolling and exasperated sighs that I, an insignificant pedestrian, should wish to inconvenience the almighty pram people!
And finally and perhaps most disturbing of all was the presence of a pram at the pub the other night. It was well after 9:30 at night and my friend and I watched in horror as a toddler was allowed to roam freely around often lingering near a door that was opening frequently. The poor little thing was almost beside herself with tiredness but her parents seemed to value their Friday night social life over their childs’ need to sleep.
I know that it is important to create child friendly spaces in our world, but can we agree that there are some spaces that are just inappropriate for kids?